The Blues Brothers (1980) - Try to sit still to this one!

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Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi are John Landis' The Blues Brothers

Jake Blues is let out of prison, and together with his brother Elwood, they receive a Mission from God: Gather the old Blues Brothers band and make 5,000 $ to save their childhood-orphanage, which is en danger of imminent closure.

The Blues Brothers is a wildly original and fun film with Dan Aykroyd (Trading Places (1983)) and John Belushi (Animal House (1978)) as mostly cool and composed ex-con musicians and dancers and legendary blues, soul and R&B-legends like Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, Cab Calloway and Aretha Franklin performing musically, - Franklin does an unforgettable version of her Think in the marvelous soul-food-restaurant scene. Aykroyd also wrote the film.

John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd with Aretha Franklin - a still from the making of John Landis' The Blues Brothers

The Carrie Fisher (Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)) and Charles Napier (as a country band leader) gags are hilarious fun. Blues Brothers is severely disposed to anarchy, but behind it all beats a wonderful, huge, musically and God-serving heart.

Probably one of the movie posters that have spun most tattoos world-wide, for John Landis' The Blues Brothers

The production of the film was insane; with the climactic car chase filmed through Chicago with dozens of cars wrecked; a budget that ran more than 10 mil. $ over its limit; rampant drug use by the two stars, (Belushi especially, of course) - it is a miracle that the movie is as well gathered together and thoroughly successful as it is. - The music and laughs and infectious nature of the film make Blues Brothers one you simply cannot miss; an explosion of life and joy in moving pictures! You just can't beat it.

Great Chicagoan director John Landis (An American Werewolf in London (1981)) peaked creatively in the years around Blues Brothers.
Note that there are two version of the film available: The 133 minute theatrical cut and the 148 minute extended cut. I far prefer and recommend the theatrical cut, although others naturally feel differently. Some of the frantic pace of the film gets watered down and lost in the longer version, which drags out several scenes in the film, adding amusing but unnecessary and pace-killing points to scenes. However, the ultimate fan of the film must, of course, watch both.

Related reviews:

John Landis: The Twilight Zone (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
An American Werewolf in London (1981) - Landis' great, funny, scary wolf

Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi with Ray Charles in John Landis' The Blues Brothers

Watch the film's trailer here, - I'm sorry for the abrupt ending

Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 115.2 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of The Blues Brothers?

Buddenbrooks/Die Buddenbrooks/Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (2008) - Solid, but overly romantic German adaptation of Thomas Mann's classic novel

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+ Best Period Movie of the Year

The poster for Heinrich Breloer's Buddenbrooks

QUICK REVIEW:

Thomas Mann's (Death in Venice (1912)) German classic about the mercantile family Buddenbrooks in Lübeck in Northern Germany, where the patriarch Jean passes on the company to his good son Thomas, - but dissolution threatens.
Good adaptation, which is elevated by its high production value; costumes, locations and sets are tip-top. Buddenbrooks is a very beautiful and attractive film, which loyally follows Mann's novel.
The acting is mostly A-OK. My critique is of the score, by Hans-Peter Ströer, which at times changes Mann's dryly observant text into wallowing romance.
The epic film Buddenbrooks is, in general, very little artistically, and very much German. A bit bombastic and unsubtle, but sturdy and well-made.
Unsurprisingly, its director Heinrich Breloer (and Ströer) have had long careers in German TV.

Related posts:

 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess

A fine old cover for Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks

Watch the - unfortunately unsubtitled - trailer here

Budget: 16.2 mil. euros
Box office: Unknown (but 1.2 mil. Germans saw it in theaters)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Buddenbrooks and other Mann-works on the big screen?

Blue Valentine (2010) or, Love: In and Out of It

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1 Film Excess nomination:

Best Lead Actress: Michelle Williams (lost to Jennifer Connelly for Virginia/What's Wrong with Virginia)
 
+ Best Love Story of the Year
+ Sexiest Screen Couple of the Year: Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams

Romantic, blue-tinted poster for Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine

Dean and Cindy are two young adults, who fall in love and have a baby together and marry, then SPOILER lose their relationship and divorce.
Truly a blue valentine, this film seems like a clear warning against marriage; the bad aspects definitely outweigh the good ones in the relationship shown: Ryan Gosling (Drive (2011)) as the romantic and Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn (2011)) as his partner, who loose her love for him.
Somewhat sophisticated structurally, the film also has a fine score by the Brooklyn-band Grizzly Bear (Jack Goes Boating (2010)) and intimate photography by Andrij Parekh (Dark Horse (2011)). Valentine is a very real tale, - sometimes sweet, and later a very sad descent and ending.
It was made on a shoestring budget with lots of improvisation involved from its impressive stars, and it achieves that Bergman-reminiscent sense of uncomfortability in the claustrophobicly intimate marriage. Williams was also Oscar-nominated for her performance.
Director Derek Cianfrance feature-debuted in 1998 with the interesting-sounding Brother Tied, and has done TV and short films since Valentine, which he actually paid to make, (and hopefully saw some payment out of subsequently), whereupon he made the similarly fine crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)). His next project is called Metalhead and is about a metal-rocker that loses his hearing.

Related posts:

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch the film's trailer here

Budget: 1 mil. $
Box office: 12.3 mil. $
= Huge hit

What do you think of Blue Valentine and Cianfrance's other works?

Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie

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French poster for Ron Howard's Backdraft

QUICK REVIEW:

A pair of brothers in the Chicago Fire Dept. walk in their father's footsteps, when a series of terrible fires are set off by a crazed arsonist.
Gregory Widen's (Highlander (1986)) script is so idiotically thick with clichés, and Ron Howard's (Frost/Nixon (2008)) direction so disengaged and loose that not even the many fine actors involved can save the messy Backdraft.
William Baldwin's (The Squid and the Whale (2005)) character - one of the two leads - seems even stupider than himself, and the ending of the film is overly long and twaddling in sentimentality.
Backdraft has solid photography, - by Mikael Salomon (Hard Rain (1998), director), - and impressive fire scenes, but it's a bad film.

Related review:

Ron Howard: A Beautiful Mind (2001) - John Nash given the Epic Treatment

Brothers (in the film) Kurt Russell and William Baldwin in their fire uniforms

Watch the overly long trailer for the overly long Backdraft here

Budget: 75 mil. $
Box office: 152.3 mil. $
= Flop

What are your thought on Backdraft?
Ron Howard has had his highs and lows; and firefighters are rarely the stuff of great movies, - what is his best and worst films in your opinion?

12 Years a Slave (2013) - The inhumanity of slavery captured in powerful film

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+ Best Movie of the Year
+ Best American Movie of the Year 

The poster for Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave

Free African American Solomon Northrup, a distinguished violin player and family man, is kidnapped in Washington D.C. in 1841 and sold into terrible slavery in Louisiana which comes to last for 12 long years. 

 
It is the first truly incredible film by London-borne director Steve McQueen, who has previously made the two features, Hunger (2008), a barely watchable film about a hunger strike in a prison, and Shame (2011) a good movie about a New York City sex addict and his sister, - and a bunch of short films.
John Ridley (Red Tails (2012)) is responsible for the adaptation of Northup's autobiographical account of his trials as a Southern slave.
McQueen's keen eye for the physically reprehensible culminates with a great - and greatly engaging - story that unfolds in a fine, always forward-moving pace that still affords itself to linger at details and important events. McQueen is not an American filmmaker, and even in this, his most awarded American film to date, he succeeds in a pacing and explicitness that seems decidedly European. - Furthermore, he never succumbs to sentimentality or falsity, and his film stands taller for it.
The film still feels very American; partly due to its cast that seamlessly portray their subjects, and partly due to its score, a marvelously blended mix of folk and work songs and Hans Zimmer's powerful, emoting score that bursts the already blood-whipped hearts of most audiences. Its percussion underscore the perversity of the slavery system, while the theme's strings put us in the tortured place of Nerthup and his fellow slaves. The catharsis is strong throughout different sections, and there is a strong sense of inevitability about the story, but the plot is so filled with despicable things that the catharsis don't cleanse so much as illuminate and bring despair. - At least I felt some despair after the strong experience of watching 12 Years a Slave, as I thought of all the places in the world where slavery is still prevalent.

12 Years a Slave presents an impressive array of bad guys. Most all of the white stars of the film portray terrible characters, barring Brad Pitt, who also co-produced the film.
But; Paul Giamatti is a rotten buffoon (in one really good, awful scene); Paul Dano is an ass; Benedict Cumberbatch is all wrong; Sarah Paulson is a mean woman; and Michael Fassbender (in his third McQueen-film) is, as most will already know, the worst; sadistic, zealous and highly dangerous.

Aside from all of these, who all give fine performances, the film also has great people in even the smallest parts, and in the most significant supporting role, Lupita Nyong'o (Non-Stop (2014)) breaks our hearts as the hardworking slave-girl Patsey, who endures her master's very awful, special attention. Nyong'o's performance is one for the ages; remembering her character, many will forever feel a sting in their hearts.
In the lead, Chiwetel Ejiofor (American Gangster (2007)) is intense and unflinching in his singular portrait, brave and honest.
The beautiful scenery of the often relentless South - filmed in New Orleans, close to the actual plantation that Northup was enslaved in, - is beautifully rendered by cinematographer Sean Bobbitt (The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)). A few of the takes are especially impressive; the realism is simultaneously stunning and grueling.
12 Years a Slave is a monumental film that deserves to be seen by as many as possible; an incredible story of human sacrifice and endurance, and a truly enlightening story of slavery in America.

Related posts:

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

 

Watch the trailer for the movie of the year, 12 Years a Slave

Budget: 18 mil. $
Box office: 187.7 mil. $
= Huge hit

What do you think of 12 Years a Slave?

The Big Boss/ 唐山大兄 (1971) or, The Foreman

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Bruce Lee's first big film, Wei Lo's The Big Boss

QUICK REVIEW:

Workers start to disappear, when they discover their factory's drug-secret. But the new foreman won't stand for it! - He is determined to clean up the mess!

A man with a purpose: Bruce Lee in Wei Lo's The Big Boss

Bruce Lee's (Enter the Dragon (1973)) first big Hong Kong kung fu movie is a romantic, drug-themed plate of the best in Hong Kong martial arts.

Boss is very low-budget, but has cool intro-graphics, an exciting story and inventive fight scenes. - The flying dogs take the prize! (See it to believe it!)
After having SPOILER exterminated all the villains, the hero of Big Boss is imprisoned.

Bruce Lee making one more of his countless, priceless facial expressions, in Wei Lo's The Big Boss

- A cool kung fu movie, and the biggest Hong Kong movie hit ever at its time.
It exists with no less than 3 different scores and has also been sold in the US with the titles, The Chinese Connection, Fists of Fury and Fist of Fury, - erroneously so, as this is the title of a later Bruce Lee film.

Another poster for the beloved film

Big Boss is directed by Wei Lo (Fist of Fury (1972)) with uncredited direction by Chia-hsiang Wu (Divorce, Hong Kong Style (1968)).

Watch the inimitable Bruce Lee in his prime here in the film's trailer

Budget: Unknown
Box office: 3.1 mil. HK $ + 2.8 mil. $ in North American rentals
= Big hit (though with some uncertainty)

What do you think of The Big Boss?
What is your favorite Bruce Lee movie and why?
And your favorite non-Lee kung fu movie?

Batman (1989) - A huge, glitzy, empty joker

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A poster for Tim Burton's Batman

QUICK REVIEW:

Gotham City's gangster problem numero uno, played by Jack Palance (Shane (1953)), is exterminated, but the replacement is no better...
Michael Keaton (Jackie Brown (1997)) is good, but very yuppie-ish as Bruce Wayne. Batman has quite a few awkward 80s qualities, - among others songs by Prince composed for the movie. The first Batman of Warner Bros.' initial film series is strangely frigid, and the interest on behalf of the audience never grows out of the curious but essentially passive.

Jack Nicholson as the Joker

The main reason to watch Batman is, of course, top-billed villainous Jack Nicholson (Chinatown (1974)), who goes theatrical and all-in as the total wacko. Nicholson himself was no fool, however; he got paid an astounding 6 mil. $ salary for his part + a considerable gross percentage, which ran up to somewhere between 60-90 mil. $!

Jack Nicholson's goofing around in Batman earned him more money than few other movies have ever made their star

Batman was a huge production with impressive special effects, but, - though many people seem to love it, - it is certainly not among director Tim Burton (Batman Returns (1992)) best films, and it also isn't among the top 3 best Batman films.
Burton has himself expounded on his negative thoughts about it, calling its production "torture. The worst period of my life!" - As its budget spiraled upwards from 30 mil. to 48 mil. $. In retrospect he has said; "I liked parts of it, but the whole movie is mainly boring to me. It's OK, but it was more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie." - And he is totally correct.

Related review:

Tim Burton: Batman Returns (1992) - Burton gives us the ultimate, Gothic spin on Gotham City and its sinister characters 
Beetle Juice (1988) - Burton and team serve one of the best horror comedies ever 

Watch the original trailer here

Budget: 48 mil. $
Box office: 411.3 mil. $ (+ 750 mil. $ of merchandise!)
= Huge blockbuster + first film to reach 100 mil. $ within 10 days of release

What do you think of Tim Burton's first Batman?

Battlefield Earth (2000) - Spectacular sci-fi disaster from John Travolta and Battlefield Earth-Roger Christian

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+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Decade

John Travolta's huge, blue head stares you down menacingly, if you dare look at the poster for Roger Christian's Battlefield Earth

QUICK REVIEW:

The year 3000: Man is almost extinct and live in tribes in fear of the psychlones, the aliens who have taken control.
Aesthetically, Battlefield Earth is excruciating; endless wipes, nauseating Dutch angles and disgusting-looking characters. Plot-wise, the film is a mess. Star Wars is the role-model for the travesty, which director Roger Christian (The Final Cut (1996)) who was recommended for the project by George Lucas, had received his only Oscar in 1977 for, (set and art direction on the first Star Wars.) But Earth doesn't have any of the mythical values involved in it that Star Wars lived and still lives on. To be (...) poetic; where Star Wars looked to the stars, Battlefield Earth just stared at earth.
It's an awful muddle, and truly bizarre to see the steel-threads-coming-out-of-their-noses-clad stars (John Travolta and Forest Whitaker) ramble on and on in scenes that are either pointless or just end very suddenly.

 

Related post:

 

The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Forest Whitaker and John Travolta in bizarre costumes with jockstraps (or boners) in Roger Christian's Battlefield Earth

To cap it all, Earth is plastered with God-awful 'music' (by Czechoslovakian Elia Cmiral (Piranha 3DD (2012)) and a headache-inducing, noisy finale. Really a bad film.
For anyone interested in fascinating train-wreck kind of trivia from the world of film, look no further: Battlefield Earth came to be largely through its Scientology-believer star Travolta's pushing it around Hollywood for years. When it lost upwards of 70 mil. $ - some of them funded out of Travolta's own pockets, - and its production company Franchise Pictures were found to be conducting fraud with bloated budgets, the real battle began.
Battlefield Earth is notorious as the biggest flop bad movie of the new millennium; it currently sits on slot # 74 in IMDb's bottom 100 list, and it 'won' a record-breaking 7 Razzies in 2001; another one in 2005 for Worst 'Drama' of Our First 25 Years, - and then again in 2010, it won its last one yet, as Worst Picture of the Decade. - Ouch!

Here's the trailer

Budget: 73 mil. $ (plus reportedly 20 mil. $ in marketing)
Box office: 29.7 mil. $
= Disaster

What do you think of Battlefield Earth?
What is your favorite worst film?

Bad Boys (1995) - Bay's successful buddy cop debut is still fun

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Martin Lawrence, Téa Leoni and Will Smith look simultaneously dangerous and silly on the poster for Michael Bay's Bad Boys

QUICK REVIEW:

The Miami Police's drug squad gets a huge problem, when a giant heroin bust gets busted from them. Detective Lowry and detective Burnett are put on the case.
Will Smith (Men in Black (1997)) and Martin Lawrence (Big Momma's House (2000)) are fun at their top game here, and Téa Leoni (Jurassic Park III (2001)) does well as the 3rd spice. Energetic performances and nice action goes a long way to make a good buddy action movie, and that is the case here. Many of the fun scenes between the two stars were improvised, (the script was not even written with two African-American cops in mind.)
The plot-line about Lawrence having to impersonate Smith is for the most part totally unmotivated in the film, which is pretty silly. Still, Bad Boys also features great music and stands tall as a very entertaining, 90's action comedy.
It was also the feature debut of director Michael Bay (Transformers (2007)), who has announced a third entry in the franchise for next year, (Bad Boys II came out in 2003 and is also a fun watch.)
Both Leoni and Lawrence are struggling career-wise today, while Smith can afford flops like After Earth (2013) and A New York's Winter Tale (2014) and still have huge upcoming leads coming his way. The reason, of course, is his 'track record' (the unprecedented number of blockbusters with him in the lead) which used to be phenomenal.

Related review:

Michael Bay: Armageddon (1998) or, Macho Men Save Earth From Disaster!

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith in Michael Bay's Bad Boys

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 19 mil. $
Box office: 141.4 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Bad Boys?
What do you think of Lawrence, Smith and Bay's more recent movies?

Non-Stop (2014) or, The Text Messaging Terrorist!

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Liam Neeson in mortal jeopardy on a plane with a gun effectively sells Jaume Collet-Serra's Non-Stop

Non-Stop is a highly suspenseful airplane action thriller with Liam Neeson (Schindler's List (1993)).

An alcoholic air marshal gets into a severe jam on a Transatlantic flight, as a person on the plane is killing people and demanding 150 mil. $ via texts.

Non-Stop marks the highlight so far in Neeson's improbable rise as an A-list action star over age 50, more or less beginning with his part in Batman Begins (2005). Since, Neeson has starred in nearly a dozen action movies and spun one franchise with the Taken movies (2008; 2012; 2014). Some of the films are good, some are bad, some mediocre, but not until now has Neeson found himself heading a truly great action movie; Non-Stop is the perfect vehicle for him:
First of all, the script is smart and full of clever ploys, written by John W. Richardson and Christopher Roach, who have collaborated in TV such as on Big Brother, and Ryan Engle, who has written a script for a movie based on the 80s video-game Rampage (2014). Non-Stop moves fast and the suspense is, - as the title promises, - non-stop.
The text message terror of the unknown terrorist on-board is weaved visually into the story very aptly, and the different suspicious characters on the plane are introduced well. We never leave the plane physically for most of the film, which is also a good choice. There is a nerve-wrecking tension of paranoia and prejudice rank in the air of the cabin, which feels very real, and the claustrophobia and anxiety of the aircraft and being crammed in with (hysterical, annoying and crazy) strangers is caught very well in the film.
Although it is no work of art, the score by John Ottman (Valkyrie (2008)) is very simple and effective. The film delivers the nail-biting excitement and thrills that we hope to get from it and gives us something extra due to its fine cast:
Besides Neeson, - who proves himself a real, flawed American hero in the film, - Julianne Moore is a joy as a sassy passenger he works with, and Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris (2011)) is good as a macho cop passenger. The bit-parts are also well-achieved; the old lady, the girl, the pilots, the doctor, the idiots on-board ... It made me think of the disaster classic Airport (1970), but Non-Stop is essentially better.
Non-Stop is a mirthful concoction on the part of the writers; SPOILER a moment that epitomizes it is when the marshal 'buys' some calm on the plane by promising all the passengers free international flights for a year. Balanced with Neeson's bear-like, patriarchal charm, this piece of cynicism (and others) work as sardonic charm sprinkle on Non-Stop.

SPOILER One plot point that had me doubting its authenticity is when fighter jets follow the plane and threaten to shoot it down, if it changes its altitude, - because it is getting near Iceland, which is far from densely populated. But it works for the suspense and is just one element in the film's almost too suspenseful last half hour, which is also truly terrifying for those of us who are not too keen on flying in the first place.
The film received mixed reviews, but the public ran to see it; it stopped The Lego Movie's strong reign over the US box office and additionally beat the big Jesus movie Son of God (2014) for the #1 spot, as they both opened wide on the same weekend. Great director William Friedkin (Killer Joe (2012)) also agrees with Film Excess and has called Non-Stop "a great action suspense movie. I highly recommend it."
Barcelona-born director Jaume Collet-Serra also sees a career peak with Non-Stop. He has previously directed the entertaining House of Wax (2005), below average actioner Unknown (2011), also with Neeson, and a few other minor movies. His next film, Run All Night (2015) is again an action movie with Liam Neeson. Perhaps Collet-Serra should accept that this relationship has now peaked? Or maybe he will show me wrong.

The worst, - meaning the best, - airborne thriller in many years will leave you not wanting to go flying anytime again soon. - Jaume Collet-Serra's Non-Stop

Budget: 50 mil. $
Box office: 198.7 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of Liam Neeson's action movies,
and do you agree that Non-Stop is the best one so far?